Exploring Data Videos as potential persuasive medium to enhance health-related behaviors

Abstract

Data Videos (DVs) or short animated infographics that tell stories with data are becoming increasingly popular, and are often used for educational and health promotion purposes (e.g., government promoting mask wearing). While the area is still novel, recent research has confirmed some \textit{advantages} of DVs \cite{choe2019persuasive}. With two studies, I explore the underlying factors influencing the potential of health-related Data Videos on influencing their viewers' intentions. Since Data Videos are ideally short in length, they are not expected to cause immediate change in behavior, however I am interested in exploring the effect of watching health-related DVs on the conceptual level (i.e., viewers' intentions or willingness to alter their behavior vs actual behavior change). Specifically, I explore; 1) the influence of DVs on how and whether viewers' \textit{affect} induced by Data Video viewing could be linked to their willingness to alter their health-related behaviors; 2) whether these affective responses are linked to the viewers' \textit{personality traits}; 3) underlying attributes in DVs that contribute to their persuasive potential. The first study explores the influence of watching health-related DVs on the viewers' feelings of anxiety or worry about their health; given their unique personalities. For this study I conducted an online survey with (N=102) participants recruited via MTurk. I further explored if such negative feelings (i.e., feeling worried or anxious) influence peoples’ willingness to alter their behaviors. Further, I explored attributes that can aid in improving the persuasive potential of health-related DVs; quantitatively and qualitatively. The second study investigates the effect of including a \textit{solution} to the health problem presented. A between-subject study on MTurk (N=119) compared the effects of three DVs (DV with no solution, DV with general solutions, and DV with specific/actionable solutions). Results indicated that viewers' negative affect lowered their willingness to improve their health-related behavior. Neurotic people experienced highler levels of negative affects and they are harder to persuade. Providing any kind of solution to the health problem; even a general one, makes the viewers perceive the videos as more useful and less stressful and that leads to higher willingness to behavior change.